WPP, who currently own consulting and analytics firm Kantar, have announced an agreement to sell 60% of Kantar to private equity firm Bain Capital.
The deal is said to value the whole of Kantar at around £3.2 billion, and comes after the announcement earlier this month that WPP were in exclusive talks with Bain Capital for the deal.
The announcement follows WPP CEO Mark Read’s announcement in March that he was beginning a formal process of selling Kantar in a more holistic turnaround strategy for WPP, which also houses TNS, Lightspeed, and Millward Brown.
It is expected that circa £2.5 billion worth of proceeds from the deal will go to WPP, and that WPP will retain circa 60% of the net proceeds in order to reduce debt. WPP CEO Mark Read said that with a much stronger balance sheet and a return of approx. 8% of current market value to shareholders, his company is making progress in its turnaround and transformation strategy.
Within this deal, Kantar will be placed into a holding structure ahead of the deal’s completion, essentially ‘carving it out’ of the current, wider WPP group. Kantar CEO, Eric Salama, commented: “Our new ownership structure presents a great opportunity for Kantar, our employees and our clients… We are focused on delivering ‘human understanding at scale and speed’ and the ‘best of Kantar’ more consistently.”
